


Saying it out loud

by marvinwhizzer



Series: Cecilos Prompts [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cecil is a Dork, Cooking, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Domestic Fluff, Early in Canon, Love Confessions, M/M, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, first 'i love you's, wheat & wheat byproducts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-11 02:13:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17437949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marvinwhizzer/pseuds/marvinwhizzer
Summary: Cooking dinner with Carlos for the first time, Cecil lets slip a certain three words. (No, not "illegal wheat by-products." A different three.)





	Saying it out loud

**Author's Note:**

> this was from a prompt someone sent me about domestic cecilos!! "Who cooks between them? Who is better at it?"  
> these question prompts are really fun to do because answering the question is as simple as one line of writing but you have to think a bit outside the box, and it gives you a great stepping stone to build any scenario you want off of.  
> [original tumblr post](http://dianecrayton.tumblr.com/post/181527966695/a-little-while-ago-i-asked-for-people-to-send-me)  
> this was really fun and heartfelt and im happy w how it turned out!!

Being very scientific and detail-oriented, it made sense that Carlos was the better cook. Cecil should have predicted this, but somehow he didn’t think before inviting Carlos into his home to prepare dinner with him.

“No, no, here,” Carlos is saying.

When their hands touch, Cecil gasps.

“If you hold the knife like  _this_ …” Carlos puts his rough palms over Cecil’s hands, guiding his movements. It’s gentle; domestic. “…it’s easier to make sharp, precise cuts.”

Carlos glances sideways at Cecil, blinking his beautiful eyelashes and turning him to mush

“Give it a try,” he says.

Cecil can feel his hands beginning tremble. He wants to do what Carlos is instructing of him, but his head’s not screwed on straight at the moment. Carlos is still over his shoulder, hands ghosting against his forearms now.

“Cecil?” Carlos calls. The soft sound tickles Cecil’s ear. “Are you listening to me?”

“I-I’m sorry, I… I can’t seem to focus right now for some reason…”

Carlos studies him. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I-I–”

“Your face is really red. Are you hot? Maybe you should sit down.”

“I’m fine, Carlos, really–”

Cecil finds himself sitting down at the kitchen table anyway.

“It’s fine. You sit for a bit. I’ll take over.”

Carlos goes back to the half-cut vegetables on the counter, tossing Cecil’s tea towel over his shoulder. Cecil blinks, looking down at his hand and wondering when Carlos got that from him.

He watches quietly for a few moments as Carlos makes quick work of the vegetables. Carlos hums softly to himself as he moves with both grace and ease. Cecil presses the back of his hand to his cheek in attempt to cool his raging blush.

He listens to Carlos’ absentminded tune for a few minutes, his heart swelling with joy. He and Carlos have been official for a couple of months now, and have been on more than enough dates to be considered, ‘going steady’, and Cecil still can’t wrap his head around it. This  _beautiful_ man is in his house now, cooking dinner together with him. It’s crazy. Sometimes Cecil is sure that he is dreaming. And then Carlos touches him, and the electrifying contact of skin-on-skin reminds him that this is all real. The literal personification of perfection is wearing his apron and cutting up vegetables in his kitchen. This same perfect being also listens to his radio show every day and sends him thoughtful text messages, and kisses him – sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly and hotly and with fervor. These times are the most surreal of all.

It’s unbelievable… but real. Somehow, this man is his.

As Carlos turns to smile at him while he overturns his cutting board into a pan on the stove… it’s more real than anything else Cecil has ever known.

Cecil takes a purposeful, audible breath. Carlos glances over his shoulder, his perfect hair falling momentarily out of place. A quiet symbol of comfortable disarray.

“Cecil?”

“Carlos,” he stammers, unable to contain the raw sentiment flowing from his lips, “I… I love you.”

Carlos’ knife clatters into the sink.

Time freezes for a moment. Or perhaps longer than a moment. With time frozen, who could even tell? How long even is a moment?

Cecil’s initial instinct is to apologize. To retract his statement. But it becomes suddenly clear that any apology would be entirely unnecessary. Carlos is smiling.

Carlos is  _glowing_.

He is also blushing.

“I– Cecil… I love you too.”

Carlos is sitting in the chair next to him now. He is leaning towards him in a casual, yet intimate way, and threading their fingers together in Cecil’s lap.

“I have loved you for quite a while,” he says. “Scientifically speaking, time doesn’t work in Night Vale, so this could be an infinitely long or short period of time, and I would have absolutely no idea which. Scientifically speaking, that is a frustratingly peculiar anomaly. Personally speaking… I don’t care how long it’s been. I just know … that I love you, Cecil. This is a scientific fact. And I have loved you for a while now. I’ve gotten used to loving you and I spend each passing day of our lives doing it. It hadn’t occurred to me that we weren’t saying it out loud yet.”

Cecil squeezes Carlos’s fingers, unsure what to say in response to all of that. “N..neat,” he chokes out.

Carlos lifts Cecil’s hand to his lips, and gently kisses its knuckle.

“Are you feeling any better now?” he asks.

“Infinitely.”

“C'mon, give me a hand over here.”

Carlos pulls Cecil up from the chair and pulls him in for a kiss.

“I love you,” Cecil whispers against his teeth. The words are still experimental, but they feel very real.

Carlos’ grin becomes so wide he can’t kiss back anymore. Cecil’s heart throbs.

“You’re so beautiful when you smile.”

“You cheeser,” Carlos laughs, pushing Cecil away. “Let’s go make some dinner.”

Cecil sighs, pulling Carlos in closer and burying his face in his shoulder.

“I love you,” Carlos whispers into Cecil’s hair. There is a beautiful stillness for a moment.

The moment seems to last several. Carlos doesn’t mind at all.

“Okay, let’s do dinner,” Cecil says finally, withdrawing from the embrace. “I’m hungry.”

—

“What exactly are we making?” Cecil asks as he tends to some sort of red sauce on the stove. It reminds him distinctly of a pasta sauce, but everyone knows that wheat was outlawed a long time ago, so it would be difficult to get your hands on pasta in Night Vale anymore.

“You’ll see.”

Not a few minutes later, Carlos is digging through a cloth grocery bag. He pulls out a smaller, plastic grocery bag.

From the second bag, he pulls out a package of noodles.

“Carlos!” Cecil exclaims. “Not so close to the secret police camera!”

Cecil rotates the pepper shaker so that it can no longer see them.

“Where did you get this?”

Cecil grabs the bag from Carlos’ hands. It is a 100% durum wheat semolina penne. The kind that you used to be able to find in stores everywhere before wheat and its byproducts were made illegal.

Carlos is smiling triumphantly.

“How did you find this?” Cecil wants to ask.

“How did you know that penne was my favourite type of pasta?” He also wants to ask.

“But I thought all wheat and wheat byproducts turned into vicious snakes months ago – I never thought I’d get to eat one ever again. Carlos, this is a miracle,” he wants to happily weep.

However, he doesn’t want the hidden microphones to pick up anything suspicious, so instead he goes quietly to the sink and fills up a pot of water to boil the noodles in.

“You’re the best,” he says eventually, as they’re quietly eating their dinner on the kitchen floor – a blind spot from the secret police and vague, yet menacing government agency, who are constantly watching everyone at all times.

Carlos beams.

“I can’t believe you’d do this for me.”

“Well, believe it.”

“I feel like I’ve said this too many times now today, but… I love you.”

“I love you too,” Carlos says through a mouthful of delicious, illegal pasta.

**Author's Note:**

> [send me prompts](dianecrayton.tumblr.com/ask) if you want to!! i love these two with my entire heart and having reasons to write about them always makes me happy


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